Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A verse in some “Latin book in Gothic black letter” (usually Ps. li. 1), formerly set by the ordinary of a prison before a malefactor claiming benefit of clergy, in order to test his ability to read. If the ordinary or his deputy said “legit ut clericus” (he reads like a clerk or scholar), the malefactor was burned in the hand and set free, thus saving his neck.
- noun Hence A verse or phrase on the pronunciation of which one's fate depends; a shibboleth.
Etymologies
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Examples
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The clerk was held to be a wondrous person in times when the "neck-verse" would save a man from the gallows; but
Side Lights James Runciman 1871
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-- And looks as if he were conning his neck-verse; and in the same dramatist's play of _The Picture_:
Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers William Alexander Clouston 1869
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Thus the wild borderers, when made prisoners, escaped the halter by pretending to read a verse of the _Miserere_, which they had learnt by heart in case of such an emergency, and called their neck-verse; and "without benefit of clergy" was added to new laws, to prevent education from exempting persons from their power.
Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862
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Poetry, which I have chosen for my neck-verse, before I proceed to my speech, you will find they fall naturally into this sense:
The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 Jonathan Swift 1706
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Upon mine own free-hold, within forty foot of the gallows, conning his neck-verse, [147] I take it, looking of [148] a friar's execution; whom I saluted with an old hempen proverb,
The Jew of Malta Christopher Marlowe 1578
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Psalm, "Miserere mei"), was called the "neck-verse," because his doing so saved his neck from the gallows.
Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers William Alexander Clouston 1869
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Were't my neck-verse at Haribee "-- the place where such Border rascals were usually executed.
Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers William Alexander Clouston 1869
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PARV.ed. 1499.)] [Footnote 147: neck-verse: i.e. the verse (generally the beginning of the
The Jew of Malta Christopher Marlowe 1578
ruzuzu commented on the word neck-verse
"A verse in some “Latin book in Gothic black letter” (usually Ps. li. 1), formerly set by the ordinary of a prison before a malefactor claiming benefit of clergy, in order to test his ability to read. If the ordinary or his deputy said “legit ut clericus” (he reads like a clerk or scholar), the malefactor was burned in the hand and set free, thus saving his neck."
--Cent. Dict.
November 5, 2012